Hi, David and all others on this list.  Frankly, despite the article's
assertions, the ADA and its backers will be no match against against the
DMCA and its backers in court.  While the U.S. Suppreme Court has yet to
rule on the DMCA, it has ruled twice in the past 3 years on copyright
issues, both were 7-to-2 decisions, and both supported the rights of
copyright holders over the rights of copyright users, and I expect the same
7-to-2 majority will hold when challenges to the DMCA come to the High
Court.  In the short term, I expect that efforts such as JAWS working with
Adobe Acrobat 6.1 as sent by Peter Altskull on earlier posting, have the
most promise of breaking the deadlock.  In the long run, I think Congress
will change the law--but I'm guessing at 10 to 20 years down the road (there
appears to be a generational gap on this issue).
All of that said on a narrower focus, Representative David Price
(Democrat-North Carolina) has just introduced HR2255.  This bill, if passed,
would give noncommercial radio stations (such as ACBradio) an additional
year's time to negotiate with the recording industry on rates, logging
requirements, and webcasting restrictions.  Mr. Price is looking for
co-sponsors.  Call and E-mail your representatives your views on the matter.
  For more information on this bill and other noncommercial webcasting
issues, please visit the Save-Our-Streams website at
http://www.rice.edu/cb/sos.  While this website was designed for college
stations, the Small Webcasters Settlement Act of 2002 places all nonprofits
in the same category so this would apply to ACBradio's music service as
well.
That's all for now.  Take care.

Ted Chittenden




>From: David Poehlman <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: David Poehlman <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Has Copyright Law Met Its Match
>Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 08:35:52 -0400
>
>PC World.com
>
>Has Copyright Law Met Its Match?
>Access by the disabled provides challenge to controversial DMCA.
>
>Elsa Wenzel, Medill News Service
>Monday, May 19, 2003
>
>Electronic books should be the easiest books for the blind to "read."
>Software can instantly translate the digital files into sound or
>Braille.
>
>So why can't the 10 million Americans who are blind "read" the latest
>Michael Crichton thriller or George Pelecanos mystery?
>
>A copyright law glitch, thanks to the
>Digital Millennium Copyright Act,
>is the culprit. But fixing it could also be the key to changing the
>law's restrictions on using digital material.
>
>A battle has been joined, pitting consumers like the blind and their
>advocates against the publishing and entertainment industries. On the
>one side, people
>with disabilities and digital rights advocates say the law is too broad,
>by limiting access to content and not accommodating advances in
>technology. On
>the other side are book publishers who argue the DMCA actually promoted
>the growth of e-books by protecting copyright.
>
>And some say the controversy illustrates why the DMCA should never have
>become law in the first place.
>
>Limited Access
>
>The DMCA punishes people with disabilities, say some experts in law and
>technology. They contend it clashes with existing copyright laws and
>even the Constitution.
>
>"This law has to be reformed," says Robin Gross, an attorney and
>executive director of
>IP Justice,
>an international civil liberties organization.
>
>"Freedom of speech guarantees of the Constitution explicitly require
>that copyright holders do not have total control over" how someone
>experiences their
>work, Gross says. But she contends the DMCA reverses that right by
>allowing copyright-holders to lock a PC from giving voice to e-books.
>
>Between 60 and 90 percent of the estimated 50,000
>e-books available
>lock out text-to-speech software, advocates for the disabled say. Many
>of those are recent bestsellers, but even literature in the public
>domain for hundreds
>of years is locked under some e-book implementations.
>
>If the e-books weren't locked, text-to-speech software could easily and
>quickly make the works available to sightless readers.
>
>"It just is a tragedy," says George Kerscher, a senior officer at
>Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic,
>a nonprofit organization that converts written texts into audio books.
>
>"How stupid are we when the information exists in a digital form and
>we've got to go through the time-consuming, laborious, expensive,
>error-prone process
>of having somebody scan it or re-key it?" Kerscher says.
>
>Appealing for Change
>
>Advocates for the blind are working their way through channels with
>their complaints about DMCA.
>
>Easy access to e-books would be "like water in the desert" for the blind
>community, says Paul Schroeder, head of government affairs at the
>American Foundation for the Blind. "
>We want the opportunity to do what you take for granted."
>
>Schroeder, who is blind, recently testified before the Copyright Office,
>urging an exemption to the DMCA. His organization and others want a way
>around
>the digital rights locks that prevent text-to-speech software from
>working.
>
>The American Foundation for the Blind is asking the U.S. Copyright
>Office to exempt all e-books from DMCA regulations. The organization
>formally made the
>request during the
>regular review
>of the law, conducted every three years by the Library of Congress.
>
>"Congress did not intend to undo fair use, but until the industry
>figures out how to support fair use, the DMCA should not apply," says
>Janina Sajka, a
>technology director at the American Foundation for the Blind.
>
>Congress only intended the DMCA to prevent digital piracy, but the law
>is behind the technological curve and didn't anticipate the practical
>uses of digital
>content, she says. And at the time, the groups now seeking change didn't
>realize what impact the DMCA would have.
>
>The entertainment industry and computer consumers wrangled over the
>definition of fair use when the DMCA passed in 1998. But its passage
>gave legal clout
>to the entertainment industry's use of digital rights management tools,
>such as encryption and digital signatures.
>
>E-Publishers Defend Policy
>
>DMCA supporters say there is no need to change the law or make
>exemptions, because U.S. copyright law allows nonprofit
>organizations--but not individuals--to
>copy literature so people with visual impairments can listen to or read
>it using Braille.
>
>"The vast amount of material" is available this way, said Allan Robert
>Adler, vice president of legal and government affairs at the
>Association of American Publishers.
>He testified before the Copyright Office against the e-book exemptions.
>
>The DMCA helped the infant e-book industry blossom because it encouraged
>publishers to put out literature without fearing digital piracy, Adler
>says.
>
>But critics of the law say corporations are defending the DMCA out of
>greed, and that fear of piracy is not the real issue.
>
>Ultimately, publishers decide whether to lock e-books, says Shafath
>Syed, product manager for electronic publishing at Adobe Systems. Adobe
>Acrobat and
>Microsoft Reader are the two most popular programs with the
>text-to-speech feature.
>
>"We provide the technology but we don't control how it's used," Syed
>says. Some publishers "think if they turn on the read aloud feature that
>somehow that
>turns it into an audiobook. It's kind of a stretch."
>
>Proponents of the exemptions say a computer reading an e-book out loud
>is the same fair use of a work as a friend reading a printed book to
>someone who
>is blind.
>
>The market, not the government, should solve the issue, according to
>Adler. But advocates of e-book exemptions say they are trying to unravel
>what the government
>has already over-regulated.
>
>Related Topics:
>Proposed Laws
>DMCA Challenge Continues
>
>The Copyright Office is expected to rule in October on the latest batch
>of requested exemptions to the DMCA.
>
>But even if the Copyright Office exempts e-books from the law, that will
>only go halfway to helping the blind hear e-books on their PCs, IP
>Justice attorney
>Gross says. People could still not create or give someone a tool to
>crack the e-book code without breaking the law.
>
>"It basically would serve the blind hacker community only," Gross says.
>People could unlock the e-books only if they knew how to crack the
>protection code
>themselves, she says.
>
>But someone who cracks the digital lock on an e-book for a friend could
>be fined $2500--and up to $25,000 for doing it three or more times. A
>code cracker
>who made money for such a project could get up to ten years in prison
>and $1 million in fines.
>
>Gross said the "absurd" law exists because there was insufficient public
>debate before its passage. Digital and disability rights advocates agree
>they didn't
>expect the DMCA to have such dire results for the blind community.
>
>"It's another example of Congress not having thought through the effects
>of the law when it was passed," agrees Pamela Samuelson, a professor at
>the University
>of California and codirector for the Berkeley Center for Law and
>Technology. "It allows a slow constriction of the public domain."
>
>Congress Tries Again
>
>Several bills pending in Congress take a stab at trying to resolve fair
>use issues, including those pertaining to e-books, especially for people
>with vision
>impairments.
>
>The House of Representatives is considering a bill that aims to make
>educational content more accessible for people who are blind. The
>Institutional Materials
>Accessibility Bill (H.R.490) would require publishers to make books
>easily translatable for people with disabilities. It has 97 cosponsors
>and is now in
>the House Subcommittee on Education Reform.
>
>Virginia Rep. Rick Boucher, a Democrat, recently proposed a bill that
>would allow people to duplicate copyrighted materials for personal use.
>The Digital
>Media Consumers Rights Act (HR 107) would overturn parts of the 1998
>DMCA law that prohibit duplicating copyrighted products such as DVDs,
>but would not
>directly amend it. The DMCRA would amend the Federal Trade Commission
>Act of 1914, which aims to protect consumers from commercial fraud.
>
>Boucher says it is particularly important for people with disabilities
>to be able to bypass technical protection measures." The current law
>really does
>punish the innocent," he says.
>
>Major electronics companies including Intel and Gateway, as well as
>consumer groups, support Boucher's bill, but it faces opposition from
>heavy-hitters
>in the entertainment industry, such as the Motion Picture Association of
>America and the Recording Industry Association of America. The DMCRA has
>been
>in the House Subcommittee on Courts, the Internet, and Intellectual
>Property since March and has 11 cosponsors.
>
>The Improving Education Results for Children With Disabilities Act, now
>in a Senate committee after passing the House on April 30, would spur
>access to
>educational books by students with disabilities, according to Schroeder.
>The bill does not directly amend the DMCA.
>
>Legal Options
>
>Only a future court challenge or amendment to the DMCA would make
>text-to-speech conversion legal for all e-books, according to Gross.
>
>Some legal experts believe that since the DMCA allows criminal penalties
>for people who violate it, someone might have to go to jail for cracking
>software
>code to draw attention to the issue.
>
>Attorney Samuelson points to
>one pending case
>that she contends is another example of the DMCA being abused, but which
>could set a dangerous precedent. Printer manufacturer Lexmark is
>charging a third-party
>manufacturer with violating the DMCA by circumventing Lexmark's
>protection technology in its ink cartridges in order to manufacture
>compatible cartridges.
>
>"Something introduced as a way to protect content is being misused in
>many ways," Samuelson says.
>
>The only completed legal challenge to the DMCA was the case of Russian
>computer scientist Dmitry Sklyarov, who works for a company that
>developed and markets
>a program that breaks copy protection on Adobe's e-books--and is legal
>in Russia.
>
>Sklyarov spent three weeks in jail after he demonstrated and distributed
>the software at the DefCon hacker conference in 2001. Sklyarov agreed to
>testify
>for the government in its case against his employer. The company
>was acquitted
>by a federal grand jury in December 2002.
>
>
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